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Subject: Re: Who is leading the World in computer chess technology

Author: Graham Laight

Date: 01:37:06 05/25/01

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On May 25, 2001 at 04:22:37, Graham Laight wrote:

>America probably took the lead in the sixties because they were rich enough to
>allow their students/professors to do chess programs on expensive machines in
>universities.
>
>Now that computers are cheap and common, the Dutch are ruling the world - and by
>a country mile!
>
>The Dutch people absolutely love mind games - chess programming suits their
>national character down to the ground.

Just to expand this point a bit further: the Netherlands is a small country
whose culture is a mixture of all the countries around them.

The combination which seems to make them lethal competitors is computer chess is
that they seem to have some British inventiveness, and enough of the German
ability to be methodical, that allows Germans to be so good at testing something
over and over, making slight variations each time, and collating the results,
that makes Germans competitive in the area of quality.

Chess programming seems to have followed the route one would expect from any
product:

* the Americans are 1st, because they are the richest country, and can more
easily afford (and are more willing to buy) new products in their embryonic
stage. In Computer Chess (CC) this was the sixties/seventies

* the British are 2nd, because once new ideas are out, their inventiveness
allows them to improvise with the product, and either come up with new ideas, or
recombine the existing ideas to rapidly improve the product. In CC, this was the
mid eighties to the mid nineties

* next will be countries like Holland, which combine British and German
strengths. In CC, this is the current time

* finally will be the Germans. When improvisation is no longer making rapid
advances in the product, the methodical Germans will be the ones who'll be
willing to keep testing testing testing and advance the product inch by inch
beyond the competitors. In CC, this will be Chessbase taking over the entire
sport.

-g

>-g
>
>On May 25, 2001 at 00:34:09, william penn wrote:
>
>>Does america have the lead, i know that belle was the first master level chess
>>computer and americans are the pioneers of computer chess.



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